Do you like Japanese food? Enough to wear a likeness of it on your bra?

Have you found yourself pursued by criminals and wished you could use your skirt to disguise yourself as a vending machine?

If those two choices aren't odd enough for you, Eric Nakamura of Giant Robot, a magazine about Asian pop culture, has another -- a dress that makes the wearer look naked. "A woman wears the dress, and it looks like you can see right through her clothes to her underwear," he told CTV.ca.

However, it's tastefully done, he added.

We're not making any of this stuff up, but if you want to check out this pop culture fluff, you'll have to get to Japan.

But back to the bra, which actually has a serious intent behind the wackiness.

Disposable chopstick use in Japan is laying waste to forests to make a product that, by definition, can only be used once. Some reports say Japan uses 25 billion sets of disposable chopsticks each year, or about 200 per person.

Using reuseable chopsticks is becoming trendy. But what's a chic way to carry them? Hmmm ...

To answer that question, the designers at Triumph International Japan came up with the My Chopsticks Bra.

One bra cup looks like a bowl of rice and the other like a bowl of miso soup. The wearer's reuseable chopsticks can be tucked into either side.

Okay, so there's some method to the chopsticks bra madness -- although we should say that Triumph doesn't plan on actually selling the bra at this time.

But who on earth would want to disguise themselves as a vending machine?

Designer Aya Tsukioka told the New York Times that her design is meant to help crime-fearing Japanese elude pursuers. "It is just easier for Japanese to hide," she said. "Making a scene would be too embarrassing."

Tsukioka looked to the ancient Ninja warriors for 21st century inspiration, noting that the ninja cloaked themselves in black blankets at night to avoid detection.

She didn't explain what would happen if a thirsty criminal stopped his sinister pursuit and decided he needed to quaff a soft drink. And does the disguise come with a coin slot? Should you give change? Questions, questions, but for US$800, you can answer them for yourself.

'Chindogu'

Tsukioka's vending machine dress -- along with a purse that imitates a manhole cover -- lean towards being categorized as chindogu, which is Japanese for "weird tool." Nakamura finds it telling that no equivalent single word exists in North America.

Japanese comedian Kenji Kawakami popularized the term, which is fitting because he's the chindogu king. Kawakami's books on the subject are among the biggest sellers at the Giant Robot store in Los Angeles, Nakamura said.

Kawakami brought the world the fish-face cover, so guilty-feeling fish-gutters wouldn't have to look the dead gill-breather in the eye as they carved it up.

He built a pair of eyeglasses with built-in funnels for the easy application of eyedrops.

"He also built the shoes where the footprints point the opposite way ... so if they're trying to follow your footprints, it's backwards," Nakamura said.

Where's Ronco or K-Tel when you need them?

But according to Kawakami's tenets, commercial application disqualifies something as true chindogu.

"Chindogu are man-made objects that have broken free from the chains of usefulness. They represent freedom of thought and action: the freedom to challenge the suffocating historical dominance of conservative utility; the freedom to be (almost) useless," he has written.

A true chindogu can't be sold, so Tsukioka's offerings can't be classified as such after all.

Neither can robotic chicks, which approximate a four-day-old chicken. Named Yume Hiyoko ("dream chicks"), they hit the market last Easter and went for about US$19.

The bikini jeans that make it look like your panties are way, w-a-a-y outside your low-riding jeans? They sell for US$80, so that's not chindogu either.

The chopsticks bra? Chindogu.

And the following, seen at the recent Tokyo Designer's Week and DesignTide events, according to Pingmag.com?

• A handgun that shoots condoms  
• A pillow with a detachable braided whip
• A sanitary napkin box shaped like a coffin

Possibly chindogu.

A head-mounted roll of toilet paper that unravels over the face for hay-fever sufferers?

Definitely chindogu.

There have been goofy products that have taken off here over the decades. Think pet rocks and mood rings, for starters.

The Japanese, however, have a certain something that sets their creations apart, Nakamura said.

"Anyone can invent something that's completely junk, but the Japanese stuff has a sense of humour where you can think, 'wow, this guy put a lot of thought into designing this thing that's kind of useless,'" he said.